


BBCSH 'After All This'

by tigersilver



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Doomed to write fluff, M/M, One first kiss, One last puzzle, Post Reichenbach, Reunions, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, What Was I Thinking?, what Sherlock wants, what Watson wants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:59:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> <b>Essentially, a really (not so) silly take on the Return from Reichenbach. I need fluff, people, and I need it </b><i>now</i>. Like I need air and chocs and wine. Hope you do, too. If so, this would be your fic du jour. Or! As suggested, it can be summarized as 'character study' + 'angst' = 'happy ending'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**BBC  ‘After All This’  
** Author: tigersilver  
Rating: R (?)  
WC: 3900 (this part)  
Pairing: S/J  
Warnings/Summary:  **Essentially, a really silly take on the Return from Reichenbach. I need fluff, people, and I need it** _now_. Like I need air and chocs and wine. Hope you do, too. If so, this would be your fic du jour. Two Parts. Next coming soon. 

  
  


“John?”

It’s a serious question.

Watson responds.

It’s his hands knuckled, wringing—Sherlock’s. Watching a fingertip pluck a violin string. “Sherlock?”  John waits and goes no farther.

Sherlock did this for love.

Hard to fathom, difficult to believe, if you’re an outsider. Not at all a difficult deduction if you’ve seen a rubber ball bouncing, a tea tray unexplained, an apple.  John’s always been the one who’s emptied the bins, right? He’s never told Ella why he doesn’t accept. Why he can’t. He never will. She won’t hear him.

He may say he does, but…well.

“Moriarty made it crystal clear, John. You, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade.” A quick flick of lips indicates his wry amusement, the detective. “Right where it counted. Naturally. For the umpteenth time, there were very few choices left to me, none of them satisfactory. None of them _choices_ , so much, but paths. I chose one. You see?”

“I see.” John does. That’s not the problem. He’s not sure there is a problem. Well…there’s one. Several. Many. Right—oh. “And? What next?”

He sits back with his tea and contemplates the man sitting opposite him. All former glory restored, excepting his face is a little more gaunt.  In his own centre John is very calm, very still. A core of peaceful brevity and ye goode olde English phlegmatic nature. The maelstrom has ended at last; they are only left with the aftermath, sitting in the uncertain sunlight filtering into the old flat and staring at each other carefully. Quite carefully.  With tea and biscuits. Ta, not-Housekeeper.

“Next? Why, it’s obvious. You’ll give up that horrible bedsit of yours, for one thing. Come back. Lestrade’s said I may have cases again; you’ll want to be on them, I imagine.” Sherlock nods, as if this is a given. “Resume your blog—“

“It never ended, Sherlock,” John interrupts softly. “There was just a brief,” he swallows, eyes on his cuppa, “pause.”

“Right, yes. I know.” Sherlock blinks slowly. Twangs a note, thin and high. “I read your entries, John. Dull.”

“Quite.”

“Should pick up a bit, I’d think. Now I’ve returned.”

“Probably.”

“What?” Sherlock abruptly leans forward, casting aside his violin and snatching up his tea cup and saucer. “You’re hesitating. That’s not like you. Problem?”

“No…” John doesn’t even flinch. “Not so much.”

“Then what? Why aren’t you already off out and packing up, John? The rent’s paid up. Both rents. Nothing to prevent you.”

“Not the rent, Sherlock. I didn’t move out because I couldn’t afford it, you know.” He laughs lightly, shaking his head over that most interesting scene with Mycroft. “You should know. You left me all your worldly goods, Sherlock.”

“Not quite all.” Sherlock seems strangely appeased by the mention of this. “I had to retain access to some of them. But enough to have you comfortable, John. It was the least I could do.”

“Right, right.”

“So? It’s not the money, then? Then why, John? Explain. You know I’m not good with reading your mind.”

There’s an admission! A sort of hilariously weird admission from the world’s only consulting detective, true, but as such, something to be a bit proud of. But John frowns. He’s not proud at all, nor pleased, to be so opaque. Sherlock should be able to see right through him, and he’s not. John’s frown deepens; it can’t be because he’s not trying, can it?

“You don’t know? You seriously can’t sort it out, Sherlock?”

“No. No! Haven’t I just said that? Do tell, John. Tsk!” Sherlock slumps back again with a little huff, gripping his tea things like they were in need of being strangled. His knuckles are white, and John sees his teeth are clamped together by a convulsive flexing of muscle in the lean jaw. Sherlock’s in a state. “Go on, then.”

“It’s how I feel.” John meets the impatient gaze directly. “Sherlock. How I feel about it.”

“You seem to feel perfectly fine,” Sherlock shoots back promptly, pursing his lips fussily. “Uncannily so. You’ve not even struck me. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Think about it.”

John’s just as prompt, just as flash with his retort. The git is a great git and doesn’t seem to have learnt much from absence. “You should know, Sherlock, after all this time. Think about it, would you? And now I must go. Things to do, people to see, you know?”

“John! You cannot simply walk out on me, John! John, John—we’re talking! We’re doing exactly what Mrs Hudson said for me to do with you—you can’t! I forbid it!”  

“You asked Mrs Hudson?” John freezes rigid where he stands, one arm thrust in his jacket, his tea abandoned to his old familiar little side table. “About me? About this?” He’s properly incredulous. “Good god, Sherlock, have you ever thought perhaps a little spontaneity? Life isn’t scripted, idiot! You don’t need to be coached through a chat with the likes of me!”

“Yes, I do, John. That’s just it.” He’s on his feet and before John in an instant, the detective is, dragging at the coat sleeve insistently, yanking it down and away. John narrows his eyes at him, furious. “That’s it exactly—I do! You’re important to me, and you were the one who was least likely to forgive me. Of course I approached Mrs Hudson for advice! Lestrade too! My—argh!”

Sherlock makes a little gagging expression, one hand gripping John’s flailing wrist, one hand firmly on his injured shoulder.

“For pity’s sake, my own—ugh!—brother, John! I even consulted with him! You mustn’t leave now—we must speak! It’s what we’re supposed to do next, this ‘talking it through’ thing people do. Then you’ll move back in and we may have our lives again. I’ve been looking forward to it, John. You can’t simply not cooperate!”

“Oh, really now, Sherlock?” John ceases to pull away, mainly as it’s proving pretty useless a venture. Sherlock is quite firmly attached and not leaving go of him. He taps a toe instead, glaring up at the idiot. The breathing idiot. A very good thing it is, too, to know for certain he’s been breathing all this time, this obstinate mule-headed twat, and also to have the one great deduction John’s made in these last three years be proven utterly, completely, profoundly correct. I.e, that he’d been properly deceived by a master of deception, had his own eyes lied to and his own medical intuition blinded—at first. A long enough ‘first’, true enough, but still only _at first_. No—John’s never told Ella what he’d observed, picking through it all later, setting it out in its courses. He never will, now. No point to it. “You don’t say. Just like that?”

“I _do_ say, John! Yes of course, just like that!”

“Why?”

“Wha- _why_?”

“Yes, why. What’s your motive?” The doctor digs his heels into the carpet when his ex-flatmate attempts to drag his tense figure in the direction of the sofa, probably to cast him down on it willy-nilly and beat his ear with yet more minutiae on what’s gone past. But that’s all old news. Not of interest to John Watson, though it will be, he’s sure, sometime later. When this is cleared up, this uneasy imbroglio his old friend, his dear detective, has left to grow between them. _If_ this is cleared up, that is. As, right now, it’s not looking at all likely or positive it will be. “Explain it to me, Sherlock. And no—I’m not sitting! Take your stupid hands off me before I make you get them off! I’m not your doll.”

“But, I don’t—John?” Sherlock looks bewildered. He bites his lower lip and blinks down at John, confusion all over his thin face. And he doesn’t withdraw his death grip, not a whit of it. “John, I—what? What’s gone wrong with you? You seemed glad; I thought you were _glad_. All the evidence told me so—and, and! You didn’t punch me, John!” He bounces a little on his heels, like an overexcited puppy, saying this; John quirks an amused eyebrow, despite himself. “You didn’t! I thought that meant—“

“You were off, then, weren’t you, Sherlock?” John has the immense non-satisfaction of telling him that, the arse. “Wrong. Wrong, wrong. Bad detective.”  He all but waggles a reproving finger in Sherlock’s shocked face. “Wrong.”

“I am not _wrong_ , John.”  This, fastidiously, his patrician nose wrinkled. As if suddenly presented with a steaming plate of tasty food.

“Fine! Not ‘right’ then. You’re not right, not in this, not at all. That better?” John snorts, recalling the ego. Always must be stoked and stroked, this one. “But yet somehow— _wrong_. You’re not on the money, Sherlock; you’ve no clue, do you? Not a one. In fact…in fact, you seem a little lost to me.” John stares intently into the eyes fastened on his own. “You seem—do pardon if I offend?—at sea. You don’t know, mate, and you always know. So—what’s the problem, then? Why don’t you? And why can’t you think? Now—leave go. I really must be off. I’ll be late if I don’t. The Tube’s not gotten any faster since you’ve been gone, you know. If anything, it’s slow—”

“John!”

For the first time since his return, the detective’s face crumples. His impassivity disappears as if it were never there; his eyes are instantly, stunning wet. And he doesn’t cry, the detective. He seldom reveals a feeling, and if he does, it’s always in a very unusual manner. Not like other people, regular people.

“It’s fine, Sherlock,” John hurries to say to him, to this travesty of a Holmes. Emotional Holmes’s are very wearing; this he knows for fact. “Really, it’s fine. Completely totally fine. Take your time about it. I’m off out, though, so leave go.”

“I don’t have time to take!”

John abruptly discovers he’s had his nose mashed into a silk-clad shoulder. And the rest of him. The nitwit is hugging him, as if John were a teddy—Sherlock’s teddy. Same nitwit who’s babbling frantically over top John’s head, his sharp chin digging into John’s scalp, quite painfully. “Ow! Ack, Sherlock!”

“I’ve used it all up, on that stupid, stupid man and his bloody machinations, John! I’ve no time left to take, can’t you see? How can you say it’s all fine when you’re leaving me? How _can_ you?”

“Mph! I’m not— _Sherlock_!” John struggles, half-heartedly for sure, but he also can’t breathe. “Not leaving, exactly; just going to work.” Too much heat and perfect tailoring against his nose and mouth. “Sherlock, back the hell off, will you? And I’m not leaving you, stupid. I’m off to my flat for a shower and then straight to my job, all right? I have a job, still. One must eat!”

“NO.”

John’s ankle is nudged, deftly, and Sherlock twists the both of them, just so, and they tumble. John lands on the couch with a startled ‘Oof!’  The detective comes to rest atop him, his feral gaze even more wild and wet than before. “No,” he growls at John, bobbing and shaking his curly head like a nutter. “No, no, no, _non_! Nyet, negative, _not_!”

“Sherlock!”

They’ve made a great deal of progress, in a very short span. John tucks away a grin, pleased. He’s not quite in the mood yet for his old friend to be blessed with a smile, no…not just yet.  There’s things, important things. To settle up. Accounts. Like an emotional chip-and-PIN. But, still? “There you are, at last, Sherlock. What’s taken you so long, eh? Wits in need of polishing? Brain out to let?”

“Wh—John! Stop it! Stop being so—so thick!”

John’s provoked to an instant scowl. He pinches one of Sherlock’s earlobes in retaliation, right smart.

“Yeee-ouch! _John_! Mind!”

“Thick! Me? _I’m_ not the one who’s thick, you monstrous tosser,” John gathers himself to roar right back at Sherlock. “Stop wriggling like that, you’re crushing me! Don’t howl so, moron! And don’t be any more thick than you really must, Detective Sherlock-Bloody-Holmes! For god’s sake! Bloody hell! I’ve just been smashed flat!”

He is, and it doesn’t improve. An absolute agony of twitching, squirming and scowling is exhibited. “Oh! Oh, fuck it! I’ll just—!” Sherlock rolls his eyes, his very head, and lowers it.

Lip distance, yes. Within a precarious range of lips, two sets. Imminently colliding, unless something is done.

John laughs, silently, under his breath. A little huff. Nothing more.

A great deal of progress, yes:

Fact One: John has not, in any way, injured Sherlock. He has not, further, even offered up to the detective a single, solitary ‘Piss off!’

Fact Two: He did, instead, go all wobbly and pale as an old bed sheet, right at first. He also hyperventilated a bit, and required lashings of tea. Yard tea, which is a dense tacky brew and offered up extremely sweet and milky blond in a flimsy cup. John drank it down anyway, despite that. As a form of mental triage, John decided later, having been then been hastily stuffed into a cab and rushed back to 221B by a very oddly behaving  un-dead detective.

Fact Three: Sherlock, although demonstrably a prat, a sneak, a callous son-of-a-bitch and far too capable of lying bald-faced to his friend, his colleague and his beloved landlady of yore, did it for love. He wouldn’t admit that; likely couldn’t admit that—possibly still does not quite fully realize his own reasoning, but. He _is_ the world’s best consulting detective, still, and he has definitely managed to detect that John Watson is boasting a stiff one, in his drawers. Quite stiff. Unflaggingly so, since the piss-poor excuse for tea from the Yard set in.

Fact Four: As is Sherlock. Also boasting. Just so. And, to John’s great bemusement, his detective’s, er, thrusting manhood, his junk? His willy? Well, it seems to be in scale with the rest of him, the great lanky elongated beast.

Impatient beastie, possessed of no practical manners nor courtesy, except when he chooses. That apparently, is not now.

“Eh!” John yelps, best as he can still squashed. “What do you think you’re up to, you giant tit? Get your bloody mitts of my cock!”

“Twaddle!” Sherlock has gotten hold of John’s various buttons, zippers and flies and is tearing away at them. Like an overgrown terrier. A bull pup. With many, many hands. “I want to see you, I must see you—why is there always _something_?—Why, John, _why_? Oh. Please! Give me your wrist, will you? No—the other one! Fucking buttons!”

“Pardon?” John decides a cold shower of reason is best for his cantankerous friend. “ _My_ fucking buttons, you mean? Get off them, they’re mine! And…not to be a bit of a bastard, mate, but why are you trying to take my clothes off? Checking for wrinkles—a paunchy gut? New scars? Well, you’re doomed to disappointment, you great bloody arse, because everything’s pretty fair down those parts, damn it, and you don’t need to be examining my body for bloody clues! Get off, I said! Let me up, Sherlock! Right. The. Fuck. _Now_.”

There are times, John believes, when being an arse is totally justified, and this is one of those times. Indeed, this is the best possible occasion, perhaps ever in the course of history.

“Oi! Sherlock! I have myself a bloody girlfriend; haven’t you detected _that?_! Stop molesting me!”

No one sashays off, not for three whole endlessly arduously long years, and can then reasonably expect to come back to a set of welcoming arms and a hot steamy cuppa from Captain John Watson. No one! Not even this idiot wanker!

“Jo—!”

If Sherlock had looked grievously wounded before, that was nothing to this. A frisson of a freezing shudder travels up the entire length of him and then he, too, goes dead still. Dead white, too, as John had, before. It’s not a good look for Sherlock; he looks like a corpse, just not bloody. An animated corpse. His thin, strong hands cease their frantic motion, he jerks up his chin, rearing back upon John’s prone form as if he’d been abruptly harpooned.  John can envisualize rather easily the great gaping bloody hole in Sherlock’s chest. His thin white chest: he’s bared it, as well. It’s heaving. The opportunistic git. Like he’d even know, Mister Virgin!  What that might mean to a man.

It was…well, it was a bit beautiful. A lovely Moment. It rather satisfied that niggling need John possessed for a little spot of revenge. Nicely.

And the detective’s chest? Diverting, indeed. But not to the point of leaving go John’s small, petty, entirely understandable dream. Nope!

“Think,” John hissed, and never felt more in tune with that monster Moriarty than at this moment. “ _Think_ , Detective. What are you doing to your only friend and _why_.”

“…I. I!” Sherlock Holmes barely ever stuttered. Barely ever! “I—I—I! John!”

“Yes?”

“Not fair!”

“No.”

“No!”

John cogitated over this accusation.

“Actually, _yes_. More than fair. Sauce for the goose, Sherlock.” He regarded his possibly soon-to-be- flatmate-again steadily. “Your conclusions?”

“You—you’re angry with me,” Sherlock stated at once.  He still seemed a bit shocked. His pupils are crack-black. He’s tenser than tensile steel. “And I…I’ve not gone about this the right way, I think. I’ve…”

“You’ve?” John prompted gently.

“Presumed. I’ve presumed. I’m…I am sorry for it. John…I’m sorry.”

He made as if to retreat, the twat, the cunt, the stupid, stupid man; as if to lever himself off John and do a bunk to what was likely his old room, if John guessed right. The bastard. John wasn’t having any part of that, no sir. Not having gotten this far!

“Oh, no, you don’t!” he snarled, grabbing on to whatever bits of subdued detective he could grab. An arse cheek and a large section of rib cage as it happened. Do him nicely. He squeezes hard and enjoys the wince. “Not a freakin’ chance, Sherlock! Talk to me! Tell me what you’re doing and why. I’m waiting, aren’t I?” He pulled a face. “And I’m late to work now, so not so patiently, either, you callow git! Heartbreaker! Life-stealer! Liar, thief and bloody goody-two-shoes to boot! Why _are_ you trying to touch my bits, Sherlock? Why do you want to now, of all times— _now_? Think! **Speak**!”

“No!”

“Yes.” Implacable, that’s the captain. “Yes, Sherlock. Why?”

“No! No, can’t you see? If I do—if I do—and you’ve some woman, and your job, John! It’s all the same again, isn’t it? Over and over, and always the same! I’ll never—I’ll never have—“

“You’ll never have what? What is it you’ll never have?”

“You.” There’s no sign of crocodile tears; the detective is dry-eyed and dulled, all passion doused. Even his prick goes a bit limp atop John’s taut thigh. “I’ll never have you; you don’t want me. You didn’t, ever, not the way I did, but it was too late, far too late, and then I never knew how to say, how to broach it. I thought a few times—I mean, I would’ve wagered, and maybe won, but I don’t gamble, John. It’s all what I can see, with my own eyes, or hear or smell or taste, and you never once—I didn’t think you’d ever. Why am I so very bad, then?” The low gravelly rumble goes thin and wretchedly jumpy in an instant. “Why is it so very bad, what I did? I had to do it; I had! I didn’t think you’d miss me, not like this. I didn’t think you’d hate me so; hate the sight of me, when I came back— _if_ I came back. I wanted so much to come back. To you, to this flat, to our lives. I wanted so much to come back, John. You’re mine, can’t you see that? Why can’t you see? You don’t need this woman, whoever she is—“

“Sherlock.”

“Another lady doctor, John? Or is it another military maid—hah! I see it is!” He’s triumphant, and bitter with it, his lips twisting. “And she suits,  doesn’t she? All down to the ground. Like a glove, and you’ll marry her, won’t you, and then I’ll— **John**! Why is it always I miss something—why always something _so_ important? That I don’t see.”

“Sherlock?”

“That I cannot see. I didn’t want to see it, John. It’s been so long away from you, and I thought of you every day, with your tea, and your shoulder, and how you sigh, and the way you close your laptop and I thought—I thought, if I could just, if I could just have that again, I’d be happy. I’d be happier ever than I was solving the game, clearing up the puzzle, John. It was wonderful, don’t disbelieve me, but so much—so much alone. And I…” Dry eyed, sober. Raw of voice and raspy. “I thought of you. Every day. John.”

He says this, the detective, as if the proof’s final. Case all wrapped up.

“Yes, well.” John swallows with difficulty. Past the clog in his throat. He’s a man, not a machine. “Why did you want to come back, Sherlock? Why does my having a girlfriend bother you now? What _is_ it you want of me, exactly? Tell me now.”

“Why…don’t you know? John?”

“Eh,” John grunts. “Making me do all the work again, are you? No. Not this time. Sherlock?”

“No. No! If I say it aloud then you’ll be forced to make a choice, won’t you? Forced to, and I’ll lose. I always lose, somehow that happens—I don’t understand it; I’m a superior specimen, but it works out that way and you’re no different, John. You’ve a girlfriend, don’t you? And I’ll lose. Can’t we be friends? Have dinner? Not that I’m hungry.”

“Sorry piece of shite. Try again.”

“If…” Sherlock glances away, not meeting John’s eyes. “If I do, will you promise to forgive me? Will you come back, at least; live in the flat with me? I’m all right with that, John—that’s good. That’s very good, I’ll make do.”

“Sherlock. You’re deflecting. You're...you're! Speak your mind, now. What is it you want, honestly?”

“ _You_. I’ve said, John. You, and I hate repeating, it’s humiliating for me when you pretend you don’t understand. You! Why can you not see that? Why did I even bother to live if I can’t have—“

“Me? Sherlock? That’s all you want?”

“Arggh!”

Progress, in the form of one man’s frustration and another’s manipulation. And role-reversal is not a bad thing. Not even a bit Not Very Good.

“John. John!”

Impasse. Like a jacket, imbedded with semtax. Not where a bloke wants to be, no.

  
  


**


	2. Chapter 2

**BBC  ‘After All This’  
** Author: tigersilver  
Rating: R   
WC: 5,000 (total)  
Pairing: S/J  
Warnings/Summary:  **Essentially, a really silly take on the Return from Reichenbach. I need fluff, people, and I need it _now_. Like I need air and chocs and wine. Hope you do, too. If so, this would be your fluff fic _du jour._  **

  
** (  [BBCSH 'After All This' Part 1/2](http://tigersilver.livejournal.com/333348.html#cutid1)  ) **

 

 

 

Sherlock never runs. Not really. He might rush headlong but he does not run.

He narrows his gaze upon John’s enquiring one, John’s deceptively mild expression, and growls, every part of him gone taut and stern.

“… ** _No_**. I take it back, all that crap I just spouted about your latest wench. Dump her! I’m not settling, not this time, John. Don’t think it.” The deep voice is absolutely steady and completely level. Very soft-spoken, though, and John has to strain to hear. “I will not settle for second best.”

“Settling?” John frowns. “Er, ‘second’?”

“Hah! No, she goes—history! And you? You wanted me to care, John? Well, I’ve learnt to care—“

“Tch! You’ve always cared, Sherlock. That’s not what I’m ask—“

“No! No, I really, really haven’t, John. Not the way you do.”

The detective visibly deflates, his chest collapsing down upon John’s, so close they can both hear the pound of his heart if they care to listen. He shifts his grip from John’s shoulder blades, only to cup the man’s cheeks instead. One steady pinkie finger soothes John’s hair from tangling in his lashes.

“Wrong, Sherlock.” John can be stern as well; he’s trained for it. “Evidence says—“

“No, fine; I’m aware. I know that. And you’ve always complained I didn’t, John, but that’s bollocks, we both know it’s bollocks, and you’ve never truly tried to alter me and you’ve always recognized I’m not some bloody machine—this I’ve known. True, I’ve not had much use for it, all this emoting people do, but I’ve a use for _you_. And you for me, John, or it wouldn’t be me three years gone and you still only having a girlfriend and nothing more. You’ve not married. You’ve made no major moves to alter your confirmed bachelor existence, other than simply shift from this flat to that awful bedsit. You were waiting for me, weren’t you? Waiting, all this time.”

“Sherlock.” John simply must smile up at the intent features, the flickering always-assessing eyes, for here is his own particular detective, alive and well and deducing. Dear and familiar. But different again. For the sake of John Watson. “Yes, of course I was. But—“

“Yes! Everything about you says to me you were waiting for me, John—and very correctly. You solved it.”

“Wasn’t that difficult, reall—“

“Shh! What _I_ want, then? What I’m doing to _you_ , John, my friend, my persistent curious friend, who likes danger so much? You need to understand, is it? In words. But those words will never be mine. I can speak them, of course I can; I can probably even be convincing, but that’s not how—it’s not _it_ , John. So _I_ ask. I ask of you—one more puzzle, John.”

“Yes?”

“Look—see! Actions. The most telling evidence of all, actions. Who has come back to you, John? Who will do anything necessary, anything, even the seemingly impossible, to keep you in this world and asking questions? _Who_? And what is it _you_ want from me, my conductor? That I’ve not already given you.”

“Oh…I don’t know, Sherlock,” John grins, relaxing into the worn cushions. “I’m a man of simple tastes, you know? Obvious desires, right? Dull, even. You’ve certainly pointed it out to me often enough, before. An idiot, then. Basically.”

“No! John, no!”

“Um, er.” John shrugs a shoulder and swallows; eyes speak as loud as actions, at times. The manner in which Sherlock looks at him is stunning. “No, all right, it’s—it’s.” He’s a little overwhelmed, actually; this has been a long time coming. And if he’s having trouble wrapping his tongue round his heart to offer it up in words, even vague ones, he can only feel sorry for his poor detective. “For you to say that to me, maybe, exactly as you’ve said it. I don’t need the flowery language or the poetry, Sherlock—“

“Not on your life, John. I’ll never—”

“Shut it. I need you. Here. With me.”

“Yes!” Sherlock whoops softly, and dips his chin to press a tiny kiss to John’s stubborn one. “I knew it!”

John glowers at him balefully. “But! But, Sherlock, you’re not off the hook altogether, either, I’m warning you.”

“No, I know that.”

“And—and we’re taking this slowly. This time. No games, Sherlock. No dropping clues and hints and then running off and abandoning me to sort it. Not having that, not a bit of it.”

“Yes. Yes!”

John lays his hands over Sherlock’s curled fingers, poking carefully at them till they spread wide and allow his own in between. It’s very warm between them, he thinks. It’s warmer still when Sherlock flashes that almost-smile at him, the smug one.

“Not so fast! It _is_ your damned area, you know? We’ve been living in the same bloody area for years now, Sherlock, and perhaps it’s not what _I_ ever thought it would be; it’s a little weird, here, okay? Very strange geography. But it’s ours anyway. Ours, Sherlock. What we are, together. Admit it, and keep on admitting—in words, mind!—and then maybe I’ll really forgive you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Which, my bloody thick detective—“

“Oi!”

“Means that you will talk to _me_. Not just think really loudly at me with that great brain of yours but actually use the real live words. In the future; no, from this moment on, for that matter, Sherlock, you will take the time to speak to me when I’m actually present, in the same room and everything. You will say it out loud, to my face—explain it, lay it out word for word. What you want, how you feel. So I don’t have it drag it kicking and screaming out of you, you great gormless git, and you will also be damned grateful I speak Sherlock while you’re at it. Damned grateful! For when you fail!”

“Good, good, yes, I will, John.” Sherlock nods his head so hard his hair flops over one eye. “I am, already, in fact. Did you hear, just now? But, now— _now_?” He’s got his knees planted on either side of John’s hips, so they’re aligned, the hip bones. One telling shove and one of John’s brows soars up his forehead. “May we crack on with this? You said take it slowly, before; see, I _was_ listening, John! I heard you. But you are a healthy male in his physical prime, all the same, and so am I, so let’s—“

“You want to shag? Me?”

“Exactly!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so earlier, Sherlock?”

It’s a matter of easily available evidence John’s sporting a very wicked grin when he asks the question, the last one he has for his detective. It’s a matter of evidence so is Sherlock Holmes wearing a very similar expression—when they finally, _finally_ , start with the snogging.

And with the _living_. As they’re men of action, the both of them, and the words that accompany such deeds can wait a bit. But _not_ three whole years. 


End file.
